The Artist's Way in New Orleans

My Artist's Date — A column under the Claiborne Overpass

One of the joys of The Artist's Way lifestyle is treating yourself to a weekly Artist's Date. The idea is that you take yourself, by yourself, on a date, and you have an enriching experience.

This week, my Artist's Date was to go see one of the painted columns under the Claiborne Overpass. The particular column is pictured above, with other painted columns in the background.

I've driven under the Overpass for years, and noticed the painted columns, but I didn't really know anything about them.

That changed about a week ago when I was attending a home weatherization conference at the New Orleans Convention Center. It was catered quite nicely with lavish coffee services outside the seminar rooms. At one of these stations, a middle-age man in formal waiter's attire, yelled out: "Coffee! Tea! Get your coffee and tea here!"

I looked over at him and laughed. I said: "Are you going to sing for us?"

Most the attendees around me were geeky govenment types from across the country, mostly from northern states, and they seemed surprised that I was talking to the coffee guy. That's something visitors to New Orleans don't understand: When you live here, we're all in this thing together, and you pretty much greet and make eye contact with everyone you pass by.

The coffee guy said: "No, I won't sing. And I won't dance. But I can paint you a picture."

Ah, I thought, that's interesting. I asked if he did oils or watercolor or what? He said he did acrylics and that he did a public artwork, which was one of the columns under the Claiborne Overpass, the one closest to the Conoco station where the Overpass intersects with Esplanade.

He said he was depressed after 9/11 and his girlfriend told him that doing art can relieve depression. So he set about to paint one of the columns. He said it depicted the entire history of African-Americans and the story was told in scenes that wound around the column and that if I was to go and look at it, I should go very slowly and it would take me four rotations to see the whole thing.

He told me his name was Robert Palmer but he needed a memorable name so his professional name is Robert Aquarius. I shook his hand and said I'd try to stop by but that I was nervous about all the panhandlers in the area. He said: "Oh, they won't bother you."

So, on Tuesday, on my way to The Artist's Way weekly Book Study, I pulled my car under the Overpass, drove up to the column and got out.

My fears of panhandlers descending upon me, like the geese at the park lagoon looking for bread, did not transpire. They stayed at their stations on the corner and I was free to slowly circle the column, taking in the story that Robert told.

It starts on the top, with images of the day-to-day activities in an African village. Moving on, the images capture the forceful taking of Africans from their homes, their perilous journey across the ocean, with dead, dark bodies thrown overboard and skeletons settling on the sea floor. Then came the slave auctions, and toil in the cotton fields. One scene shows a white master at the door of a slave woman's cabin. Later came beatings and lynchings and rewards for runaway slaves, then freeing of slaves and more violence, and the Civil Rights movement and more violence, and finally some progress as children enter schools. The last scene is an African-American girl holding up a diploma.

Wow! That's a lot of painful history when you see it all in one place with just four rotations around the column. I could imagine the power and intention of Robert as he decided on these scenes of his history and then put the paint on the column. It touched me.

I noticed so many other painted columns nearby. And they all have stories, and passion, and someone's fierce intention to say something, to be heard, to be seen. I hope someday to learn those stories.

Two women, two kids and a box of paints

Last Saturday, I had plans to meet my friend Carole and her two grandkids at the Amusement Park and Storyland in City Park. I had to get some footage for a video I'm making, and she thought the kids, Steven, 8, and Ali, 13, would like the rides.

Just prior to our afternoon meeting, Carole took her grandkids to the Art Museum to see the Disney animation exhibit. This is when I had this brilliant idea: Wouldn't it be fun if they all came over to my house (across the street from the park) and did some art. And so they did.

The idea was brilliant because right after they left the Art Museum, Ali said that she felt like drawing. You see, that's what happens when we give our inner artist some nourishment: she wants to make art. And after we make art, and we're ready to be filled up again.

This reflects exactly my experience 20 years ago when I went to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival with a class and where we saw seven major productions in six days. In between the productions, our teacher had us doing a lot of art, collage, playacting, mask making, etc. She explained that unless we made art, unless we emptied out and put forth our creativity, we could not take in more . We would become saturated with stimulus and overwhelmed with the productions we were seeing. So I started getting up early and doing collages. I took that practice back home and did some more each morning before I left for my newspaper job. See the site my early collage-making here.

Eventually I was accepted into a juried art association, had an art show and sold some pieces.

So when Carole (a very accomplished pet portraitist) and I and those two kids were playing around and putting paint on paper plates and making hand prints and using as much glitter glue as we possibly could, we were not just having fun, we were also getting ourselves emptied out and ready for the stimulations at the Amusement Park. It was magic.

Week 2 — My Artist's Date — Drumming Circle

(Note: This post is about a formal Workshop that was held in the past. For information about the ongoing weekly Book Study at the New Orleans Healing Center, click here.)

 Each week during The Artist's Way workshop (and perhaps for life), we are to take ourselves on an Artist's Date. That is something we do to nurture our inner artist. And it's best done by ourselves so that we're not spending a lot of our energy being codependent and making sure a companion is having a good time. This is for us. It could be an artistic experience, like going to the art museum or a symphony. It could be an adventure, pushing ourselves to do something we'd thought about but hadn't dared to do.

This week, I went to a community drumming circle. I'd stayed away from drumming circles before for several reasons. First of all, the ones I'd seen were on the beach in Santa Barbara and seemed to be populated by Grateful Dead followers and there was the scent of weed in the air. That's not my scene. The next reason is that I have no idea how to drum. I didn't even know you were supposed to tilt the drum to get sound out of it!

The drumming circle I attended solved both of those problems. It was indoors and there were no substances, legal or illegal. Plus, this one provided the drums (which look almost identical to the one pictured above), and an amazing teacher. There were about 8 of us and we learned simple drum moves: the slap, the snap, the base, etc. I think I have those right. I'll learn more next week.

The sheer power of the drumming sound was therapeutic, a vacation from my writerly life. Not once during the 90-minute class did I think of an article that was due or how to plan my next Artist's Way workshop or that my dog really needs a bath. I was fully present. I wish I could have gotten video. Maybe next time.

Here are some examples of facilitated drumming circles. This was NOT the class I attended, but you can see the value of a good teacher and leader.

 

 Here are some basic tones we learned:

   

 More after next week's class!